Lupiverse(es)

António Marques · 15 Mar 2012, 21:56 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:56:06 +0000
Subject: (urth) Lupiverse(es)
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David Stockhoff wrote:
> On 3/15/2012 5:19 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>> David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> My disappointment was not, after all, that Lewis was a Christian. Who
>>> cares? I would be equally wary of books written by psychologists. The
>>> disappointment lay in his didacticism and dishonesty. What I had been
>>> led to believe was one thing was revealed to be another. Whatever
>>> aspects of the story I enjoyed were apparently not considered the main
>>> point by its author. Worse, Narnia made me think I believed things I did
>>> not believe.
>>
>> Regarding this and the hypothetical anti-christian Wolfe (a thought
>> exepriment which I think is by no means new) what I have to say is
>> that, like all demons who turn to be unknowingly doing the work of the
>> Increate, the joke would be on the writer, not on the readers who
>> enjoyed the book. *Provided* the readers enjoyed the book. If the
>> readers don't enjoy the book [other than fueling their own beliefs],
>> then the joke's both on them and the writer, whether the writer is
>> honest or dissimulate.
>>
>> Iow, if the work is good, it stands, no matter what the author thinks.
>> But I think the odds are very small indeed that a covert author would
>> produce a really good book.
>>
>> In this case, if you like Narnia, then you like it, and realising
>> after the fcat that it is propaganda should only turn you off, I
>> think, if what had made you like it were all the propagandistic bits
>> fitting in with each other. Otherwise, it makes no sense to disown it.
>> Of course, since you say you never liked it all that much, you're just
>> being coherent.
>
> Actually, I think a covert author is quite capable of producing a really
> good book, IF the necessity for covertness is externally imposed.

That part of my argument should have used 'dishonest' rather than 'covert'.

> After that, I'm not sure I'm following you, Antonio. I think my logic
> might not quite fit into the box you have made for it.

Gee, that could be because I made no box for it. I made a box for a 
specific case. If it isn't yours, it isn't. Oh - I see I used the 
'impersonal you' again. Sorry, even after a number of episodes where it 
seems to have caused confusion, it seems it's crept into my english and 
I don't even notice when I shouldn't be using it.

> What I liked
> about Narnia was probably not in fact all the "bits" fitting together,
> which I would identify most prominently as the personal, moral choices
> characters had to make. Those were uninteresting and contrived, and, I
> felt, increasingly so.

Correct. What I said above is that someone who didn't like that aspect 
of it from the start shouldn't be feeling betrayed by it. Someone who 
did, could feel betrayed, but should also think 'I should have known 
better'.

> If I felt betrayed, it was not because I fell in love with the Narnia of
> the books after LWW, but because I gave Lewis the benefit of the doubt
> after having betrayed the first time, after LWW, and obtained some
> partial enjoyment as a result. The discovery of propaganda did not come
> after the fact, but in the course of reading. I stuck it out
> nevertheless. TLB revealed what was, to me, the mendacity of Lewis's
> project.

Would you say you felt more betrayed by Lewis than by Narnia itself? Or 
did the creature turn out to be unwelcome itself? Or - did the final 
book do away with the 'illusion of depth' you had managed to keep 
regarding the bits you liked?

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